Adaptation of a Chlamydomonas mutant with reduced rate of photorespiration to different concentrations of CO2
It has been widely accepted that Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells utilize inorganic carbon very efficiently for photosynthesis by operating a CO2-concentrating mechanism (CCM) under conditions of limited CO2. To help define the mechanism, 7FR2N, one of the suppressor double mutants of phosphoglycolate phosphatase-deficient (pgp1) mutants that have a reduced photorespiration rate (RPR) was crossed with wild-type strains to generate the strain N21 as a single RPR mutant. The comparison of photosynthetic characteristics with wild-type strains after the cells adapted to different concentrations of CO2 revealed that photosynthetic affinity for inorganic carbon was higher than that in wild-type strains after adaptation to concentrations between 50 µL·L1 CO2 and 5% CO2. Chlorophyll fluorescence parameters were also compared, and the biggest difference between N21 and the wild-type strains was observed in the photochemical quenching and effective quantum yield of photosystem II (ΔF/Fm′) at the CO2 compensation point. These values in N21 increased in a similar manner to the photosynthetic affinity for CO2, and increased significantly when the cells adapted to low-CO2 levels, whereas the values in the wild-type strains were apparently lower without any significant changes, regardless of the CO2 concentrations to which they were adapted. Although it was not clear if a nonphotochemical quenching parameter (NPQ) in N21 was higher than that in wild-type strains, NPQ increased coincidentally with the increase in photosynthetic affinity for inorganic carbon when the CO2 concentrations to which the strains were adapted decreased, in both the mutant and wild-type strain, suggesting that this form of NPQ reflects the operation of CCM in certain conditions. Possible candidates for the RPR mutation and the relationship between CCM and photosynthetic electron flow are discussed.Key words: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, chlorophyll fluorescence, CO2-concentrating mechanism, low-CO2 responsive gene, phosphoglycolate phosphatase, photorespiration.